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November 6, 2003 /

Context. Ken, DC, Ian and I went to see Revolutions last night. One of the previews was for Punisher, which features Thomas Jane kicking many, many butts in various styles and fashions.

Payoff. Ian, on watching the preview: “Brendan, look! They already made a movie about Sigurdur Petursson!”

Condense, condense, condense

November 5, 2003 /

Via Sumana:

“It’s like a law of nature, a law of aerodynamics, that anything that’s written or anything that’s created wants to be mediocre. The natural state of all writing is mediocrity. It’s all tending toward mediocrity in the same way that all atoms are sort of dissipating out toward the expanse of the universe. Everything wants to be mediocre, so what it takes to make anything more than mediocre is such a f***ing act of will.”

—Ira Glass

November 5, 2003 /

On the principle that I’ll try anything twice, I went to a hair-cutting establishment similar to where I got my last bad haircut and, shockingly, got exactly the same haircut.

Pros of this haircut:

  • My hair doesn’t get in my ears anymore.
  • I look–just the littlest, tiniest bit–like a badass.

Cons of this haircut:

  • No I don’t.
  • AND I DON’T HAVE ANY HAIR.

I learned something, though: watching in mute horror as great hunks of my head fell away, I discovered myself to be in possession of a lot of gray hair. I could seriously be all gray by the time I’m 30. You can’t tell in the Idiotcam©, because it’s almost all in the back. But as Mister Sadistic Barber drew his Nazi Razor (Nazor) over my skull again and again, the air around me was a dark snowstorm, filled with the pale detritus of eight years spent learning computer science.

November 3, 2003 /

Caitlan was here over the weekend, and I wasn’t a very good host, but it was good to hang out with her again. I’d like to say we went to the circus and fought ninjas, but actually we mostly did homework. We did have some bright spots, though, including Caitlan’s cooking of the first fried green tomatoes I’ve actually liked, and Caitlan’s assistance of Ian and me in our attempt to buy wedding clothes–a grueling journey that involved going to one store, then going to another store right next to it. Okay, it wasn’t actually grueling. It’s harder to find dress shirts with French cuffs than you’d think, though.

Caitlan is doing very well at Georgetown, on track to go to Oxford (Oxford!) for a couple of years, like I never got to do. In fact, she’s already been once, though only for a week. I instructed her over the weekend on the fact that, if she does go and gets the accompanying degree, she’s allowed to trump basically any argument against her by saying “Ah ah! Oxford.” It is also street legal to respond to any attempt at countering this trump with a back-handed slap.